"Years from Now"
He's aged. Not aged chronologically, but aged, as in two syllables. Old. She doesn't remember him as being old, even if he was, older than her, greyer, hair thinning, the backs of his hands a little wrinkled in the way people's skin does when they pass fifty. But to her, he was never old. He was just…him.
"Hi," she says, softly. There's a fleeting thought that he won't recognize her. She's changed, too – her hair is longer, her clothes different, and she wears lipstick, now. Someone, half-jokingly, once asked if she was trying to avoid being recognized. Maybe she is. She's not sure.
It only takes him an instant, the time between turning his head and the optic nerve conveying her image to his brain, to recognize her. If she was trying to avoid it, it never would have worked. He may be aged, but he's still him, still a genius, still remembers everything.
Everything. Or maybe not, maybe just what he was sober for. Maybe he thinks, or hopes, she doesn't remember it all, remember how he looked in his bathtub, agony pouring out of every pore. He'd taken enough Vicodin to forget, she's sure. But, of course, she does. It's impossible not to.
"Hi," he replies, his voice gravelly and tired, but there's still that affection in his voice that, once upon a time, outweighed the contempt. "I didn't…expect to see you here." Or anywhere, probably.
"How are you?" She has some idea of how he is from the glaring omission to his form. Everyone said it would only be a matter of time, but she never really believed it. He'd almost lost his leg so many times only to fight for its salvation, the prospect that eventually, he'd lose the battle, seemed impossible.
"State hopscotch champion." There's so much cynicism and self-deprecation in his joke that anyone else would have missed the pain. She wonders if he still feels it physically, or if, finally, he doesn't have to live with the agony. "How about you?"
"I'm okay." She gives a little shrug. There's too much that's happened to give him a real answer, but it's not a lie. She really is okay.
"Good." He nods. "Well…this has been…"
"Awkward?" She offers.
"See, and I was going to say delightful. Now you've gone and made me rethink that." He almost smiles.
She does smile, despite the sudden, overwhelming desire to cry.
He turns to walk away, and gets a few steps before she calls out, after him, the words coming out without really meaning to. "Do you love her?"
When he faces her, he doesn't meet her eyes. For a moment, she thinks he's going to break her heart, break the only thing that has kept her from hating him all these years. Instead, he lives up to the image of him she's always chosen to hang onto. "I'll always love her."
Rachel nods. The word comes out softly, only audible to herself. "Good."